Matrix 4

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

It looks like I will now have to stay off FaceBook today. It's not people on my friends list causing the spoiler issues, it's stupid movie sites that are posting what amounts to spoilers in their tag point for articles they are releasing about the film, so you don't even have to click on the page to see a one-line spoiler.

You would think it wouldn't be hard to not put a spoiler there.


I rewatched the original again last night, to have a fresh memory of it.

You know, I'm not sure how the timelines work per se. There's a piece of computer text in the opening panel of The Matrix and one at the end, which reveals the entire first movie takes place between Feb 19, 1999, and September 18, 1999. But then all these web sites keep saying Reloaded (and also Revolutions, then) takes place only six months after the first film. That seems rather dumb, they should have given it a year or two. I am not aware of a "six months" comment but I could have forgotten one -- or maybe it was in one of the Animatrix sequences?

To add the confusion, remember that it's also actually 2699. Morpheus says 2199 in the original film, but he's unaware of the existence of previous iterations of the Matrix.

Zion

Zion is the last, only known human city on the planet Earth. The city is the launching point for The Resistance against the Machines that threaten their freedom. Zion, a city of over 250,000 humans, is actually a massive series of caverns deep under the ruined planet's surface, close to the...

matrix.fandom.com

Zion, according to the Architect, has been completely destroyed five times by the time of the sixth One, Neo, meets the Architect. As a result, the actual year on Earth is estimated to be closer to 2699, not 2199. If you take into consideration that The Matrix Resurrections takes place 20 years later, it would now be somewhere around 2718 in the real world.

 

[Totenkindly]

To add the confusion, remember that it's also actually 2699. Morpheus says 2199 in the original film, but he's unaware of the existence of previous iterations of the Matrix.

Zion

Zion is the last, only known human city on the planet Earth. The city is the launching point for The Resistance against the Machines that threaten their freedom. Zion, a city of over 250,000 humans, is actually a massive series of caverns deep under the ruined planet's surface, close to the...

matrix.fandom.com

Yeah, I am well aware of the 5 centuries in there.

I am discussing how long it is between The Matrix and The Matrix Reloaded -- I don't recall what reference just says it is "six months". That just doesn't seem realistic, if The Matrix events actually take seven months. It seems kind of dumb to me.... aside from maybe with "The One" manifesting, the rate of chaos has increased geometrically.

It's really bizarre to think that Neo joins Morpheus, seven months later is killed and comes back as the One, and then just six months later the events of both other movies occurs. It's like birth->growth->decline->death all happening in a very short period of time.

Even the ministry of Jesus supposedly happened over three years.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

Yeah, I am well aware of the 5 centuries in there.

I am discussing how long it is between The Matrix and The Matrix Reloaded -- I don't recall what reference just says it is "six months". That just doesn't seem realistic, if The Matrix events actually take seven months. It seems kind of dumb to me.... aside from maybe with "The One" manifesting, the rate of chaos has increased geometrically.

It's really bizarre to think that Neo joins Morpheus, seven months later is killed and comes back as the One, and then just six months later the events of both other movies occurs. It's like birth->growth->decline->death all happening in a very short period of time.

Even the ministry of Jesus supposedly happened over three years.

For some reason I never give that much thought to how long things take place in movies. Movies kind of operate on their own time in my head. My impression, on being asked to think about it, is that the events of the first Matrix take place over a week to a month. Not sure about the distance between it and Reloaded. A year is what I would probably guess.

 

[Totenkindly]

For some reason I never give that much thought to how long things take place in movies. Movies kind of operate on their own time in my head. My impression, on being asked to think about it, is that the events of the first Matrix take place over a week to a month. Not sure about the distance between it and Reloaded. A year is what I would probably guess.

Yeah, you would think the first Matrix would take place over a month or so.

Watch the very beginning and end of the film. (I just watched it last night.) There is a specific time stamp prompt telling you that the opening frame of the film occurs on 2/19/1999 (the year is fake obviously) and the end frame of the film occurs on 9/18/1999.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

Yeah, you would think the first Matrix would take place over a month or so.

Watch the very beginning and end of the film. (I just watched it last night.) There is a specific time stamp prompt telling you that the opening frame of the film occurs on 2/19/1999 (the year is fake obviously) and the end frame of the film occurs on 9/18/1999.

Huh. Perhaps that's only the epilogue with Neo's message that takes place like five months later?

I feel like it would have definitely taken him more than one day for his body to readjust from being in the pods, and I could see it taking a few weeks even, so that's how I came away with the month thing. There's also the training. Since Morpheus believed he was the one, he would have probably taken him to the Oracle as soon as he believed he was physically and mentally ready.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

If it had been Sean Connery as Morpheus and Will Smith as Neo. I have nothing against Will Smith as an actor but I think there's something about Keanu and his detached vibe that makes him perfect for the part. Will Smith I can't see being so detached.

 

[Vendrah]

 

[Totenkindly]

Well, yeah... that really was pretty meta!

Keanu can still be a little stilted with his line delivery, but it didn't bother me in this film.


EDIT: Btw, in case you watch it and are confused by some of it, I was skimming online and found at least one decent writeup that seems to capture the major elements in some detail.

The Matrix 4 Resurrections: Explained (Full Plot And Ending) | This is Barry

Here is everything you need to know. How are Neo and Trinity alive? Who is the Analyst? Why is Morpheus young? The plot and ending of The Matrix: Resurrections explained.

www.thisisbarry.com

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

Well, yeah... that really was pretty meta!

Keanu can still be a little stilted with his line delivery, but it didn't bother me in this film.


EDIT: Btw, in case you watch it and are confused by some of it, I was skimming online and found at least one decent writeup that seems to capture the major elements in some detail.

The Matrix 4 Resurrections: Explained (Full Plot And Ending) | This is Barry

Here is everything you need to know. How are Neo and Trinity alive? Who is the Analyst? Why is Morpheus young? The plot and ending of The Matrix: Resurrections explained.

www.thisisbarry.com

It wasn't as good as the first but it was much better than I was expecting when the project was first announced.

They avoided doing a few things that really irritated me about the Force Awakens. First, they acknowledged Resurrections and Reloaded a great deal even though they weren't as popular instead of going out of their way to avoid doing anything that might remind someone of those movies at all (there are a few "easter eggs" about the prequels in TFA but that's it). Second, and most importantly, they did not just do a lame ass reset button just so they could recreate the story of the original film. This actually built on Revolutions and actually worked with the different dynamic created by the ending of that film to do something interesting. They didn't make it so that everything that was done in the original trilogy was meaningless (which would end up making the movie kind of a drag) and actually hang a lampshade on that.

I like how much this movie trolls the "red pill" crowd as well (at one point implicitly connecting the red pill to feminism) That must have been extremely annoying for the Wachowskis to witness.

Also I liked that it was pretty positive in its attitude rather than grimdark. I'm at the point where I want more positive visions instead of apocalyptic visions.

Finally I found it amusing that the Merovingian was reduced to a hobo ranting about how great things used to be. I definitely find those rants annoying, so it tickled to me to see him as a pathetic hobo ranting about Wikipedia. One could imagine some complaints about "woke entertainment" cropping up if he had been on screen more. Now that I think about it, he looks like the Trainman did. Now I wonder if in an earlier iteration of the Matrix the Trainman had a more prestigious role and more dapper/dashing appearance.

How cool is that bird robot? I know Sati said it rescued her, but does she "live" in it now?

 

[Totenkindly]

Regarding Lambert Wilson:

• Yeah, I immediately thought of the "old man yelling at clouds" meme when he appeared. I had mixed feelings about it, because it was such a meta appearance. It contributes little to the story and just felt insulting to Merv, so I wasn't sure what point it served, but then again it was kind of funny.
• I had trouble telling what he was saying in the theater, so I came home and rewatched the sequence with subtitles on.
• Basically my understanding was: The new iteration of the Matrix created by the Analyst went a new route, where all old programs were hunted down and destroyed at that point rather than being allowed to linger. So Merv lost everything because in order to survive, he and his compatriots have been reduced to pretending to be homeless people living at the fringes of society, to avoid detection. This is all Neo's fault because of him originally going to machine world, and then now Neo being still alive in this new version of the Matrix designed to feed off him and Trinity; this new version of the Matrix has been very unkind for Merv.
• It lends a new twist to his comment in Reloaded about how, "I have survived your predecessors, boy, and so I will survive you." That's still true, it's just that Merv has been forced to stoop to some pretty low quality of survival in order to keep that true... and now Neo is back.
• His speech is pretty funny -- it sounds mad but it's quite coherent in concept, just the words themselves are a rant.

Regarding Priyanka Chopra Jones

• I feel like Sati has been one of the most retro-fitted characters for this outing. The role of her character in Revolutions feels very different than her role in this film, it's almost to the degree of rewriting the character completely.
• I guess the excuse is Sati's role in the old Architect/Oracle driven Matrix iterations got thrown out the window when the Analyst designed a new Matrix once the Peace period had passed and Neo/Trinity had become the center piece of this new iteration. So she was then a character without a role/purpose in this new reality, and she is using her abilities applied to what amounts to a new universe?
• Kinda underwhelmed by her here. She's okay but I don't know if she offered anything essential -- although I guess the resurrection pod plans might be the one thing the resistance did not have.

Regarding Jada Pinkett-Smith:

• I was okay with this. Niobe was always rather dour as a character. Depending on her life after the war, I could see this version of her happening, and apparently she and Lana went through a few iterations of exploration before agreeing on this version of Niobe. She's always been a kind of crusty, in your face, don't get in my way kind of character.... very strong-willed. And this is just what happens what that kind of persona becomes the authority rather than a fringe rebel.
• I like they had at least one character from the prior trilogy show up physically present.

Regarding Yahya Abdul-Mateen II:

• He's not really "Morpheus" per se, as he's not even human. So calling it a 'younger' self of Morpheus isn't really correct and also explains why they did not want to bring back Laurence Fishburne. He's an artificial being modeled off the original Morpheus.
• He was created as a character in Thomas Anderson's modal that is replaying the first scene from the Matrix. It's almost like a Matrix in a Matrix allusion, as I guess it is running on his game developer machine, which exists in the Matrix itself. I guess modals were Lana's acknowledgment of the popular "Matrix inside Matrix" theories.
• The character is a composite of both Morpheus and Smith. Why those two? Because both of them set Neo free -- one of them by literally freeing his mind from the Matrix, the other by killing him within the Matrix leading to him becoming the one. If any AI sim is going to help Anderson somehow escape his current cage that he can't escape diretly, it's this character which Bugs runs into while investigating the modal and frees to enter the actual Matrix itself. At that point, the character can break through the shells obscuring Neo from direct consciousness of his situation.
• This Morpheus (as a program) can actually manifest IRL due to nano-matter manifestation. A few other programs do this as well during the film. So at this point, the new Morpheus (as a program) has existed in a modal, directly in the Matrix, and then also outside the Matrix. Not bad for a ... program.
• At this point, Mateen only has to evoke echoes of Morpheus, not really be him. So I think he's fine -- something familiar, something strange.

Regarding Jonathan Groff:

• So Smith was recreated for this iteration of the Matrix, again as a particular watchdog for Neo.
• He's even overtly included in the "fantasy" even under his actual name (Smith).
• He still gets the best lines ("You, as a balding nerd... and me... even more perfect," coming out of the mouth of Groff's GQ face with his "piercing blue eyes" that are overkill).
• The Analyst used Smith since he and Neo were so intertwined, and Smith could keep better rein on Neo. However, this backfires once Neo gets out of the Matrix. Smith gets freed again as well.
• Smith is the only agent still running off old code design. The new agents don't body hop anymore; the Analyst instead uses "swarm" bots that look like regular humans inserted into the matrix. (So you just run the kill code and the bots all immediately swarm, as per the last sequence of the film.) Anyway, this is why Smith can still bounce around the Matrix, taking over host forms.
• Smith doesn't want the current Matrix reset, since he is alive again in this iteration. At the same time his quarrel is no longer with Neo but with the Analyst, who is seeking to chain/enslave him to his own purposes.
• Hence, while Smith thinks Neo is trying to destroy this version of the Matrix, they are at cross-purposes; however, if the current iteration isn't going to be destroyed, then they are uneasy allies. Smith is not susceptible to the Bullet-Time code the Analyst uses to control Neo at various spots in the film, so he can act against the Analyst and ends up saving the day.

 

[Totenkindly]

My overall feelings about the film:

I enjoyed watching it, but we're off the beaten path. I don't think the film justifies its existence, even if it is nice to "check in" on Matrix world, the world would have gone on fine without this film. It even could serve as a soft reboot for more films... but I don't see any compelling story that would necessitate such a continuance. I'm generally viewing it as expensive grief counseling for Lana (because she said as much, I don't mean that in a cruel sense but just that the film seemed more to satisfy her own processing of pain, than necessarily a film that the audience needed) and she was kind enough to take us along for the ride.

Regarding the plot:

• The plot is okay. The original trilogy focused on the war between human and machine, after the humans created machines and then tried to discard them -- and how that plot was somewhat subverted by Neo fixating on Trinity. That plot is generally resolved now. This film is ironically more about Neo and Trinity trying to free themselves, to find each other again, and the machines still using some humans as copper tops takes a backseat.
• The ending does Trinity (and Neo) a lot more justice than the third film, although I liked the gritty reality of accepting that everything ends with decline and death. At the time, THAT was somewhat subversive. This is the happier ending they never got in the trilogy... and it feels good to see that.
• This is a new iteration of the matrix. So in a sense all of what we know about the Matrix from the first trilogy doesn't matter. The board was swept clean and new rules were put into place. This is both a loss and a gain. You lose the historicity and a sense of what matters / is at stake, at the same time you can reinvent some things or do new things. (For example, the relationship between Smith and Neo is similar but different.) But just because something looks familiar to the audience doesn't mean we understand it, if we are trying to evaluate it by our knowledge of films 1-3. Still I am reminded of Niobe and Morpheus in the 2-3rd films, when they talk about things being the same but different, different but the same.
• As far as old pieces go, the Oracle and the Architect were cleared when the new Matrix was generated by the Analyst. That game is no longer in play. Humans and machines now are not two factions, there is bleedover between the two. The old powers like Merv also have been reduced to lurking the edges to avoid deletion. The Keymaster is suggested to be gone (note the empty "locksmith" store early in the film that no one is ever in, I can't recall whether that is in the modal or the main Matrix). There is no "One" in the complete sense because the old function of the One is no longer needed; it was just present to support the Architect's versions of the Matrix. [It does not mean that humans cannot exceed the boundaries of the matrix, though, as we see in the film).
• The old green tint of the matrix is mostly gone, although it will show up in the swarm bots and the view screens on the ships and things. This version of the matrix is rosy and golden and beautiful looking much of the time. However it's still possible to "see" that it's a simulation. In the Black Mirror episode "Hang the DJ," the two leads recognize simulative qualities based on limitations of the world around them. In this film, there's multiple times when the birds are noticed -- and how they seem to be flying around in predictable patterns. It reminds me a bit of the SW Prequels, when CGI was getting super-prominent and people would show off by CGI'ing flocks of birds that looked pretty but also a bit fake all at once. This version of the matrix can at times be recognized by how things almost seem to move in preordained patterns that are supposed to look more random ... computers are good at this kind of movement, it was first noticeable too in Disney films like Emperor's New Groove or Mulan, where large groups of identical objects were randomly made to be slightly out of sync and/or not quite doing the same things.
• As noted, I'm not sure where this would go next, if any story remains to be told. It's like the end of the first Matrix film, which could have served just fine as its own story.
• I really like how for the first third of the movie, you can't tell whether Thomas Anderson is truly crazy / having psychotic breaks, and maybe the entire Matrix trilogy was just a series of games, wherein he lived out personal power and love fantasies about himself + a woman he'd watch at the local coffee shop. Aside from the bits from Bugs' perspective, it's really unclear what Anderson's frame of mind is.

Regarding Keanu Reeves:

• This could be one of his best dramatic performances, definitely in a Matrix film. He's older, wiser, more measured, more sensitive. I liked him a lot here.
• Less about the passion of youth, this is more about a man who lost someone he loves doing what he can to recover that love without brashly thinking he can just fix it or beat it out of someone or force things to go his way. He also gives Trinity space to expand instead of sucking all the air out of the room.
• It's interesting how this version of Smith never calls him Neo, really. He calls him Tom. I can't tell what the point was, except maybe to reinforce (since they were trapped in the matrix sim together as Smith and Tom) their connection. Smith seems bemused by Anderson but doesn't despise him, there's even some admiration there, and a sense they can benefit each other -- although it doesn't stop Smith from being willing to kill Neo if his actions threaten to keep him locked up.
• I like how some of his powers are limited, he can't really fly when he first tries, and he seems pretty rusty. He does seem to depend a lot on his protective shielding/force blasting, something he didn't do in the past when he focused more on the martial arts.
• I like how he looks. I like how he looks older in the matrix. I like that he looks older in the reality scenes.
• Anderson is still shaken of his confidence by all that therapy under the Analyst, and the meds. He also doesn't seem to be pressuring himself to save everyone. he just wants to save Trinity because he loves her. Otherwise he has laid the hero mantle aside. It's not even him at the end who tells off the Analyst, he leaves that to Trinity.

Regarding Carrie-Anne Moss:

• She gets a bit short-changed for time. She's still one of the best cast members in the room, she tends to just outshine anyone she's in a story with. She makes acting look so easy that it's easy to forget how good/natural she is.
• What screen time she gets, she really takes over.
• She's brutal in the end moments with the Analyst. Wow.
• Trinity does seem to break the fourth wall, like Neo, and does it more quickly. When she comments again about "how beautiful" the sunrise is, it's actually like her moment of transfiguration where she can see the world laid out around her as a sim. She has just watched the birds. She is also the only character who ever saw the sun in the old trilogy.
• She's still beautiful while having aged. Again, I really like how they are two people appearing in their mid/late 40's, reuniting lovers, and showing they still have mettle. You can tell when they wake up on the ship and embrace while the youngsters look on in awe.
• I like how the original trilogy never makes Trinity a less-than. Even thought she dies first in the last film, I never felt like it was a short-change -- it was a heroic effort on her part to get Neo to where he needed to go, to finish the job that both of them started. She couldn't do his job, but she did her job. Resurrections feels in part an attempt to reward her and blatantly reconfirm that they are both equals in ability and in importance, even if she was never the Anomaly/One.

Regarding Doogie Howser / AKA Neil Patrick Harris:

• He is color-coded in blue and thus the "blue pill" gatekeeper.
• Harris kind of ruined Gone Girl for me because when he appeared, he always felt like he was smirking or too over the top. he makes a great comedic actor (Dr. Horrible or Series of Unfortunate Events) but I have trouble sometimes taking him dramatically. Well, for the first half of this film, I found him believable. Not sure what he did, but that smirk was gone. Eventually the smirk comes back (when appropriate), but I guess that makes sense.
• The Analyst saw Neo die and became aware of the possibilities. He seems to be a mix of Architect know-how and Oracle people-working. When the energy shortage happened and the machines went to war with themselves over the dwindling resources, he is the one who came up with this new Matrix idea that could circumvent the problems inherent in the Architect's system.
• The Analyst and Trinity/Neo are at a stalemate of sorts. The Analyst won't let the machines do the fail-safe reboot because he will likely be marked for deletion due to his failure. So Trinity and Neo can do what they want inside this iteration of the Matrix, or they all get reset. And the Analyst won't be alive. He's basically ambitious to a degree that has now left him trapped as well.
• He's smart and has a sense of irony, like tormenting Neo with "bullet time" which was Neo's friend but is now a cage for him.

It wasn't as good as the first but it was much better than I was expecting when the project was first announced.

They avoided doing a few things that really irritated me about the Force Awakens. First, they acknowledged Resurrections and Reloaded a great deal even though they weren't as popular instead of going out of their way to avoid doing anything that might remind someone of those movies at all (there are a few "easter eggs" about the prequels in TFA but that's it). Second, and most importantly, they did not just do a lame ass reset button just so they could recreate the story of the original film. This actually built on Revolutions and actually worked with the different dynamic created by the ending of that film to do something interesting. They didn't make it so that everything that was done in the original trilogy was meaningless (which would end up making the movie kind of a drag) and actually hang a lampshade on that.

I agree with all that. it was weird at first to think that the films might have just been an expensive video game to make Thomas Anderson feel important and loved, but that is also pretty daring. I did not mind the edits at all where old footage was briefly superimposed with new, it is one of the few times it felt appropriate to me in a film.

I like how much this movie trolls the "red pill" crowd as well (at one point implicitly connecting the red pill to feminism) That must have been extremely annoying for the Wachowskis to witness.

Yeah, that conceptual vehicle had been stolen by their ideological opponents. I like it being balanced out here too.

Also I liked that it was pretty positive in its attitude rather than grimdark. I'm at the point where I want more positive visions instead of apocalyptic visions.

Can I saw the film actually ends hopeful? and not in the cheesy / semi-unearned way of Revolutions but basically like the first Matrix film where the future is unwritten but open? Even the color palette was affirming.

Finally I found it amusing that the Merovingian was reduced to a hobo ranting about how great things used to be. I definitely find those rants annoying, so it tickled to me to see him as a pathetic hobo ranting about Wikipedia. One could imagine some complaints about "woke entertainment" cropping up if he had been on screen more. Now that I think about it, he looks like the Trainman did. Now I wonder if in an earlier iteration of the Matrix the Trainman had a more prestigious role and more dapper/dashing appearance.

That's kind of a cool thought. I really didn't even think of it.

How cool is that bird robot? I know Sati said it rescued her, but does she "live" in it now?

No idea, really. I liked the various types of machines. You have regular machines, more human-centric / affirming machines, and also the programs that can step into the real world via the nano-magnetic tech.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

Can I saw the film actually ends hopeful? and not in the cheesy / semi-unearned way of Revolutions but basically like the first Matrix film where the future is unwritten but open? Even the color palette was affirming.

No, I'd agree. It also made me laugh.

No idea, really. I liked the various types of machines. You have regular machines, more human-centric / affirming machines, and also the programs that can step into the real world via the nano-magnetic tech.

Yeah, I loved that. It was probably my favorite part of the movie; all the stuff about the human/machine symbiosis. Reading more of people's responses it seems that there's the idea that maybe Zion failed because it accepted the peace, but also became isolationist and didn't want to work with the machines either. I guess there's the idea that if they'd worked with the machines, they would have survived. I love that concept.

It was so much more interesting than if they'd just made the conflict humans vs. machines.

 

[Totenkindly]

I rewatched it at home this afternoon, just to see what I picked up on second pass and/or how things might gel.

There were a number of jokes / silly things tossed in, if you are paying attention. Note for example that the vertical sign that Bugs slides down early in the film is "ANDERSON" and there's a flash panel near the bottom that says something in neon like "Where the food tastes like shit!"

 

[Totenkindly]

One of 2021’s biggest letdowns? The new Matrix movie no one asked for

The Matrix franchise has proven such a durable and popular sci-fi brand over the years that Warner Bros. at one point reportedly considered making a fourth installment without director and franchise co-creator Lana Wachowski. Based on the reviews and audience reaction to The Matrix...

www.yahoo.com

Sometimes we view movies based on who we are, not on what the film actually is.

It sounds like the mixed reviews are more about unmet expectations. It is why I tend to view this more as an epilogue film than a fourth installment. I guess it was either this or something that could have been arguably better or maybe a LOT worse if the studio had brought newbies in to make a fourth film. Then again, maybe a fourth film would have started fresh rather than trying to connect too much to the past.

My expectations were pretty modest and despite any disappointment, I feel much better than I did after TROS came out previously which failed on so many levels not even related to the property but just from a storytelling / film-making perspective.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

One of 2021’s biggest letdowns? The new Matrix movie no one asked for

The Matrix franchise has proven such a durable and popular sci-fi brand over the years that Warner Bros. at one point reportedly considered making a fourth installment without director and franchise co-creator Lana Wachowski. Based on the reviews and audience reaction to The Matrix...

www.yahoo.com

Sometimes we view movies based on who we are, not on what the film actually is.

It sounds like the mixed reviews are more about unmet expectations. It is why I tend to view this more as an epilogue film than a fourth installment. I guess it was either this or something that could have been arguably better or maybe a LOT worse if the studio had brought newbies in to make a fourth film. Then again, maybe a fourth film would have started fresh rather than trying to connect too much to the past.

My expectations were pretty modest and despite any disappointment, I feel much better than I did after TROS came out previously which failed on so many levels not even related to the property but just from a storytelling / film-making perspective.

Oh, there is no comparison between this and Rise of Reddit.

 

[Vendrah]

I think the plot would be more interesting if they had kept the trilogy ending and instead went back to the time on which the wars on machine started, like telling the story between more or less our world until the world of Matrix. It would be definitely more interesting than this. This film also did not really add much to the story on the big picture.

I don't think it is that bad as some says, and I can't say Im disappointed because I wasn't expecting anything at all TBH (and when I say I wasn't expecting anything, I don't mean that I was expecting the movie to be bad, I mean I just went to see the movie for curiosity and fun), but I see that it could be much better in a lot of ways. I think the effects and acting were good (even though they shouldn't had replaced Morpheus and Smith actors - they should either kept the same or just had dropped these characters), but I think the plot story weak.

 

[Totenkindly]

They were apparently trying to get Hugo Weaving but couldn't because of scheduling, hence Jonathan Groff ended up doing it.

The Morpheus character in the modal was a combination of Smith and Morpheus, hence a different appearance. The Trinity construct was similar to but not the same as the Carrie-Anne Moss Trinity as well. Everything in that modal was similar to the "reality" we recall from The Matrix, but they were just iterations of the characters and not exactly the same.

Yeah, this is why I view this film as an "epilogue" rather than as part of the main story. People can take it or leave it, it's not essential to the original trilogy and just offers an additional piece of story.

I get the feeling part of the reason Lana made it (aside from working through personal matters) was because the studio had been pushing for another Matrix film and had even put other writers on it at times, and she figured it was better for her to do something than for a new person to take it over. i.e., blame the studio.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

@rep regarding Luke's training on Dagobah since I can't view your profile.

I feel like that's maybe a month. I think you could probably reason that it took them a fair amount of time to get to Bespin because they don't have a hyperdrive. Also it seems like the Han Leia relationship developed significantly which would make more sense if there was more time. They definitely did it at least once on that trip. There was a thread on the Jedi Council forms on theforce.net alluding to such, haha.

 

[AOA]

Wow.

 

[Totenkindly]

I guess I'll be dead by the time it moves into real life and hologram projections. Maybe they can scan my brain before I conk off in 25 years and a semblance of my virtual consciousness can live on...